The Hershey Company

The Hershey Company is a U.S.-based food and confectionery company headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It is best known for brands like Hershey's, Reese's, Kit Kat, Kisses, and Jolly Rancher. Since Hershey's operations depend on manufacturing, cooking, cleaning, cooling, and processing ingredients, water use plays an important role in its ESG performance.

Hershey's main water sustainability effort is to focus on reducing water use at sites where water risk and demand are highest. The company sees water availability as a key manufacturing risk, especially in areas with climate challenges or high demand. Rather than using one approach for all locations, Hershey prioritizes certain facilities and uses local water-risk indicators to decide where to focus its reduction efforts.

Hershey says its 2025 progress came from investing in technology, improving processes, and collecting better data on water use. The company uses ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis systems to recycle and reuse water, optimizes cooling stacks to save water, and recycles wastewater for uses like irrigation. These steps help reduce the amount of freshwater used, lower wastewater output, and save costs.

Hershey has improved how it assesses water risk. The company uses local risk indicators and WRI Aqueduct 4.0 to measure water stress at each facility. Some locations, such as Goodyear, Arizona; Guadalajara, Mexico; Mandideep, India; Monterrey, Mexico; and Plymouth, Indiana, are now classified as high or extremely high risk. In response, Hershey conducts targeted water audits to learn about local water use and find ways to reduce it at each site.

Still, the 2025 results are mixed. Hershey saw better risk exposure compared to 2023, especially in areas with high water stress, but its total water use rose from 4,679 million liters in 2024 to 5,187 million liters in 2025. Water intensity also increased from 3.06 to 3.36 liters per kilogram of product. Hershey says some of this increase was due to an old cooling system at its main office, changes in operations, and more facilities being counted in the water inventory. While the site-level strategy is important, the overall trend in water efficiency is still a concern.